


burning down the batteries

by KilltheDJ



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25476904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ
Summary: It's been twelve years since the Fabulous Killjoys died for the Girl. Twelve years since they fell from grace, and twelve years since family has been a word in the Girl's vocabulary.Tonight, though, she's not a little girl anymore, and she's more than what Better Living Thinks she is. She's a Fabulous Killjoy, and she's going to save the same Fabulous Killjoys that raised her
Comments: 24
Kudos: 57





	burning down the batteries

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for all of the character tags!!!

“You ready for a firefight?” 

The night air is harsh against her skin, and the winds whisper of a coming devastation. Still, the Girl nods, a glare settling upon the imposing wall of Battery City in the distance.

Cherri Cola is lacing up his boots to the side of her, glancing up at the wall as well, though he holds far more determination than anger, than the need for  _ revenge,  _ that fueled the Girl. 

She knows what the City took from her. She’s no Val Velocity, and while she never plans on  _ being  _ Val Velocity, he’s by her side, as well, a grimace weighing down on his face. He’s never seen the city for all it is before, too caught up in the blind age-old fantasy of  _ heroes we are.  _

Heroes we  _ aren’t.  _

It’s stitched into the inside of her jacket, along with the yellow mask tucked snugly within a hastily made pocket; for protection, for prayers, though she now knows there’s no ghost looking over her shoulder.

The closest to a  _ ghost  _ she has is Cherri Cola, and he’s not going anywhere, no matter how many times Vaya and Vamos try to worm their way into his poetry sessions on the air.  _ Hold tight to whatever gets you through the night.  _

The stars begin to twinkle, brighter, brighter than they ever have, as the Girl, Cherri Cola, and the Ultra Vs set off, a beat-up old Trans Am, graffitied radio-van, and a Jeep awaiting them as the sand guides them. 

It’s time to watch the stars align. 

However, the brightest lights cast the darkest shadows, and the stars begin to fade away the closer they get to Battery City’s walls, the sounds of engines drowning out the night.

The Girl’s never been in a firefight like this. She doesn’t want to be.

She doesn’t want to be, but she has to, and she knows she has to. There’s a type of anger sparking in her, and it’s one she can no longer ignore. 

If Battery City was going to take everything from her, her mother, her family, her friends -  _ then she got to take something back.  _

Even if it ends in blood, and she’s afraid it will, she can’t help but  _ try.  _

Her curls are short, now, and she’s not used to the way they aren’t disrupting her vision or her peripherals; she misses it, honestly. It doesn’t feel like  _ her  _ without them, though perhaps that was because spending time with Val Velocity does that.

Val Velocity is… She doesn’t know what to think of him other than a  _ try-hard  _ and a  _ Halo Head.  _ He’s got skill, and he knows it, but it’s all directed in the wrong place, and he’s less of a hero than he is a wildcard, swinging wildly out of the anger he’d grown up in and the empathy he’s been shown. 

She doesn’t know whether it’s a good idea to trust him. 

But she’s going to trust him anyway, because she has to. 

The Trans Am hums appreciatively, a touch-up on the rusty old engine having been long overdue; she’s finally tall enough to reach the pedals and, if she could remember right, she’s about the height Ghoul used to be. 

_ Used to be.  _ Is. 

The height Ghoul  _ is.  _

He’s a short fucker, and so is she, and they used to joke around about being related ‘cos she’s short and he’s short and they have the best eyelashes out of the crew, and… 

The memories ache, though she can’t quite remember all of them. But she’s going to make more.  _ She is. She’s taking her fucking life back.  _

And her life isn’t about them.

They were destined to die the moment they became the  _ Fabulous  _ Killjoys, but they’re her family, and she knows they deserve more than rotting away in some fucking prison cell because they’re too valuable to  _ kill.  _

If her foot wasn’t already pressed to the ground on the gas pedal, it  _ would have,  _ because she doesn’t want to think about that. She doesn’t. They’d have been there for years, have been, and she doesn’t want to think about it.

That’s why she’s leading the Ultra Vs, after all.

It doesn’t feel  _ right  _ to be driving the Trans Am, to be  _ leading  _ anything, but they always thought she was bound for greatness. Maybe she always has been, or maybe it’s something she learned along the way, but now she’s  _ leading  _ something, and it’s not the homicidal riot that Val wanted to start.

The City walls loom impossibly closer.

Then again, that tends to happen when your speedometer reads 110mph. She’s going to burn the engine and fuel out at this rate, she thinks, but there are a few cans of gas in the back of Cherri’s van and it’s enough to get them out, in, out, with four more people than they came in with. 

She’s got this. She  _ knows  _ she does.

And it’s that kind of confidence that’s going to help her, she hopes, since there’s nothing else she’s got going for her.

They don’t have numbers.

They don’t have the element of surprise.

They don’t have any DJs with them to keep them updated, though that was because Newsie and Chimp were already in the city, waiting for them, and the doctor was still in a coma, hooked up to more machines than the Girl knows they  _ have.  _

She’s not forgiving Val for that.

But she doesn’t need to. He’s helping her, and whether he decides that’s a good idea or not, he’s with her for this.  _ He needs to be.  _

“Approaching the city, what’s the plan?” Cherri asks over the radio, in that calm, soothing voice that relaxes everyone over the airwaves. 

It’s not a good thing, not right now, but she doesn’t care. It helps. “Vs, you stay low. Can you do that?” 

She’s mostly asking for  _ Val’s  _ sake, because he’s an uptight, paranoid bastard who  _ always  _ needs a stake in the action, perhaps  _ just  _ so he knows what’s happening at all times.

Instead of Val’s answer, she hears a chorus of, “Of course!” “You know it!”

Vaya and Vamos were, arguably, smarter than Val when it comes to certain things. He’s no doubt sitting behind the Jeep’s wheel, white-knuckled, wondering why he’s being  _ put on the bench  _ or whatever else he’d come up with.

“And me?” 

“You stick with me, and then you meet up with Chimp and Newsie, get to the rendezvous point.” 

“I can do that.” She can practically hear the smile in his voice, the way he’s starting to realize she’s not just floundering in a role not meant for her anymore. 

She’s  _ the Girl.  _ She’s the girl the Fabulous Killjoys died for, and she’s going to be the girl that rescues them, too, twelve years later with a newfound set of skills under her belt. 

She knows what she needs to do, too, she’s just not prepared, or so she keeps telling herself. There’s a ray gun in the passenger seat next to her, because it keeps falling off the dashboard, and it’s already painted red.

It was Kobra’s. 

Or - It  _ is  _ Kobra’s, and she’s going to return it, she just needs to  _ find  _ him first.

Okay.  _ Time to get out of your head, yeah? Stop thinking so much. Start rescuing.  _

That’s what she tells herself as the crucial moment looms closer, the City walls gleaming in their watchful eye, and she  _ twists  _ the steering wheel to the side, throwing both herself and the car to the side, sand kicked up so high from the sudden hundred miles per hour twist it flies high enough to momentarily block the view of the watch post towers built into the wall. 

“Go, go, go!”

It’s a voice she doesn’t recognize blasting through her radio, one she doesn’t quite recall save for the one time they met, but she instinctively knows it’s NewsAGoGo, and Newsie is the one guiding the Vs to where they need to go with frantic directions.

While the Girl doesn’t know how she knows, she knows they have a minute and twelve seconds before the sand washes away from the outpost. 

_ That’s what you get for re-painting your stupid walls all the time!  _

“Girlie, Girl, you still with us?” 

“Don’t call me that,” she snaps, though she doesn’t mean to - she needs to haul ass is what she needs to do, and the Trans Am takes more time than she appreciates to get the gist and start  _ going,  _ hastily turning the wheel and hoping for the best with all the sand in the air. 

“Sorry, sorry, ah! Stop! Okay, straight forward, now, you’re right in front of the tunnel, you got this, keep runnin’.” 

Newsie’s directions are as distracting as they are helpful. She’s guiding the Girl, guiding them all where they need to go, somehow, Cherri on Girl’s tail with the van and the Vs… Somewhere, she doesn’t care where.

“Where ‘m I goin’, News? Need directions quick!”

She swerves once again, narrowly dodging a body in the street - no doubt a  _ welcoming gift  _ from the one and only DJ Hot Chimp, so they’re safe, for now, but not for long. 

Newsie curses under her breath, and Girl can hear her slamming her fists down onto the table of wherever she is, but she doesn’t know why. “Okay, uh… You see that scary-ass building in the - Velocity, get the fuck down, you’re gonna get killed,  _ that’s an order! _ \- background? That’s the Tower, you gotta go there.” 

Oh,  _ great.  _ Of course she had to go back to the building they died in, in the first place!

“Yeah, uh, you got directions for that?!” That’s kind of pressing when you’re rushing through a city far quicker than you’re supposed to be with a mission depending on  _ you.  _

Newsie takes time to answer, too much, where even is Chimp? “Yeah, her - Cherri! Could you turn here? No - okay, circle back a block, who the  _ hell  _ thought it was a good idea to let you drive again?!”

“Girl!”

“Well, not my fault you haven’t learned!” The Girl hisses between grit teeth, chatter on the radio fading out of her focus unless it’s Newsie giving her directions,  _ turn here, go there, for the love of Destroya avoid the fucking potholes, would you? It took forever to find replacement tires for - Oh, Witch,  _ **_turn!_ **

Newsie is, arguably, not very good at giving directions.

It’s a mad race through the city, and the Girl pointedly does not look at how quickly she’s going, or the way the ‘Am is not agreeing with her,  _ and and and.  _

_ And _ doesn’t matter.

What  _ matters  _ is the way the beat-up car is faithfully weaving her through the city, though the slums and the high rises, all the way to the center of the city with Newsie’s frantic directions in the background,  _ turn right, turn left, keep goin’ straight till you find that sign, do I look like a GPS to you?  _

She’s almost there. 

Cherri veered off somewhere along the way, but the Girl doesn’t mind, not so long as she knows where  _ she  _ is going. 

Help will come soon, but for the most part, she needs to do this. 

Chimp has already disabled the security cameras within the Tower itself, or so says Newsie, giving the Girl a head start. 

It’s useless to park the Trans Am by the service door, but she does so anyway, killing the engine if only so it didn’t get stolen, jamming the keys in her pocket, and… 

Taking a breath. She needs it. She knows what she’s about to do, and she knows that there’s a strong possibility she could get herself killed. And she’d die the  _ same way  _ she’d thought the four did.

But she would die on a rescue mission,  _ not  _ a suicide mission. She has a plan, and that’s more than they ever did. 

“I’ll be back soon,” she tells herself, or maybe the car, or maybe she’s echoing the same phrase she’s heard years and years over, from her mother, from Poison, from Cherri, from Chimp, from everyone who’s ever left her.

And she’s going to break the cycle if it  _ kills her.  _

With that, she grasps the ray gun in the passenger seat,  _ Kobra’s,  _ whispers a prayer to the patron saint of explosive miracles,  _ Ghoul,  _ puts on that brave face Jet taught her long ago, and dawns the mask in her pocket. 

She is not a messiah. 

And she is  _ not  _ a little girl. 

She’s eighteen, older than  _ Kobra  _ was when he supposedly died for her,  _ and she’s going to become a Fabulous Killjoy.  _ Maybe it’ll doom her, too, but she likes to think it’s good luck.

With her mementos paid, the Girl opens the driver side door of the Trans Am, and she doesn’t start a war. 

_ She is not a messiah.  _

Instead, she takes one look at the service door and blasts off the lock, - hopefully, Chimp has already disabled the security, but she never knew - rushing in. 

She’s got an earpiece in, something salvaged out of the doctor’s old radio supplies, and the constant chatter of the radio is there, with Newsie’s frantic directions. 

Looks like the Ultra Vs were getting more than their fair share of action, though the Girl doesn’t know what got lost in the translation of  _ stay low.  _

They’re a good distraction, regardless.

“Newsie, where’m I going?” 

Despite  _ her  _ being the center of what’s happening, though  _ not  _ in immediate danger (as Val Velocity most definitely is), Newsie chirps an  _ oh.  _ “Fuck, yeah, sorry, crash queen. You’re gonna need to find some stairs.” 

“Isn’t there an elevator?” The Girl’s  _ more  _ than certain the Tower has over fifty levels, but she doesn’t say that much.

“Trust me, Girli - er, crash queen, you’ll want the stairs. They’re fireproof. And lock. Regardless, find some stairs, and from our intel, ‘bout sub-level eight? Yeah, they should be there.” 

“You sound so confident.” Still, the Girl looks around, her fingers almost  _ hurting  _ from the way she was squeezing the ray gun, looking for a  _ stairway  _ sign or something like that.

Eight flights of stairs down and back up, huh? With  _ maybe  _ highly injured escapees? Her future’s not looking bright.

The future is bulletproof so long as she makes it that way, so the Girl resigns herself to the fact that she’s glad she used to run around with her cat for fun, and - spots a stairway! Yes!

It’s locked, of course it is, but she blasts the lock once again - and there it is, full access to the stairwell. 

It’s not as though  _ BLI  _ itself would damage their own equipment; they would take the time to unlock the doors, and she had that in her favor. 

Keeping track of which level she’s on is what’s confusing her, throwing her off, but Newsie knows what she’s saying, or so the Girl can hope.

It’s dumb  _ luck  _ the earpiece she was wearing even  _ has  _ GPS, because otherwise, Newsie wouldn’t have any idea what she’s doing.

“Take a turn there—” 

“You do realize I can’t turn, right?” The Girl says blandly, face-to-face with a concrete wall, at the end of an obscene amount of stairs. 

Though, she does have to admit she’s lucky it’s not even  _ more  _ flights - there are, no doubt, mo4re than fifty sublevels of the Tower.

Newsie sighs, the adrenaline rush from earlier fading into anxiety as the rescue mission came to a virtual standstill, waiting, waiting on  _ her.  _ “Closest door, yeah? That’s where they should be held.” 

“Do we have any idea  _ what the layout  _ of the floor is?” Of that, the Girl expects a  _ no,  _ and she’s not surprised when she gets one. 

She’s used to making things up as she goes, but… The idea of going into the  _ Tower  _ with little to no game plan scares her.

In fact, there are a lot of things scaring her, in the silent  _ you’re going to die, this is a horrible idea,  _ going through her head, because when everything’s at a standstill, that’s the  _ perfect  _ time for something to go completely wrong. 

And if it does, it’s on her, isn’t it? Not Newsie, not Cherri, not Val and his crew,  _ just her.  _

Still, she’s a Fabulous Killjoy and will carry the title into death, so she takes another breath, and finds the door. 

It needs the lock blasted off, and she’s lucky no one’s there to see her shake, flinch at the blast she lit off.  _ Nothing feels right.  _ She shouldn’t have a gun. She shouldn't be the one saving them. 

It’s not right.

But it’s what she needs to do if she wants her family back, and with her sleeve covering her hand, to keep from burning it on the used-to-be lock, she pushes the mindset out of her head. 

She’s going to save them! She is!

And yet, there’s nothing when she opens the door.  _ Nothing out of place, that is.  _

“You’re gonna have to figure out where to go from here,” Newsie says through the earpiece, hesitantly, and the Girl knows she heard the door open, the creaking hinges giving way to the steel-gray hallway, spanning farther than the Girl can hope to see.

There’s nothing. Absolutely nothing. 

No one’s walking around, and the Girl can’t see any cameras; she knows Chimp’s disabled them, but they should be  _ somewhere.  _

The steel gray of the walls reflects the harsh white lighting from the ceiling, and the lack of contrast is the only reason the Girl notices a slightly-lighter panel built into the wall.

She bets, as she runs toward it, still clutching the ray gun, it’s a holographic computer. And if she turns it on, it’ll activate  _ something,  _ but… 

But nevermind. She doesn’t care so long as it gives her what she wants.

Double-tapping the panel, sunk a half-inch into the otherwise pristine gray walls, the Girl holds her breath and waits for the worst - 

The worst doesn’t come, yet. 

The screen lights up, reflecting a blue across her face and clothes; the most color she’s ever seen in the City beyond that fateful night, though she knows it’s not something BLI can change. 

At first, she’s excited. She activated the panel!

And then, she remembers with a bitter taste in the back of her throat, she’s not the best at reading. “Newsie?” 

“Yeah? What do you need? Is something happening?” The silence must be unnerving Newsie, too; they both know it can’t be this easy, there’s something waiting for them; BLI must’ve noticed the Girl had broken in ages ago. 

Right? 

“I - Well - There’s this panel, I activated it. I just… don’t know what it says.” She  _ would  _ be embarrassed to admit that, but she knows Poison can’t read, either, and there are more pressing things at hand than her inability to read large blocks of text with big words. 

“Do you know the individual letters/” 

“I can read  _ some  _ of it.” Oh, her face is still red regardless. Ugh. There is  _ far  _ too much going on to spend the time reading! “Just not a lot of it. I think…. I think…” 

She does lean forward to squint, and, like Ghoul taught her years ago, and Cherri tried to expand on, she could sound out the words.

Maybe she will take Cherri up on that teaching offer sometime soon. He has quite an impressive book collection.

The Girl doesn’t get to ponder that thought all too long, if only because the panel vanishes in front of her, and -

Fuck!

Fumbling to bring the ray gun up to her chest, her finger hastily presses on the trigger finger, the blast sending her backward from the ricochet from the awkward way she’s standing, but  _ boom,  _ there goes one Drac.

_ Dracs.  _ She knew it!

“Uh - nevermind that!” The Girl says, frantic, thankful she doesn’t have to hold anything to talk to Newsie because she would  _ drop it,  _ both hands wrapping around the ray gun. 

_ Kobra’s  _ ray gun. Because she’s saving them. 

“What’s happening? Back up needed?” 

Newsie’s voice is all but static in her ear, and the Girl knows she should answer, but there’s a Drac squadron of  _ fifteen  _ advancing on her and she’s got more things to worry about, blasting another Drac in the forehead with a grunt. 

“Just - yeah,” she manages, backing up, away from the panel, down the hallway, away from the stairwell because they came  _ from  _ the stairwell, fuck, she’s trapping hersel, but what else can she do? “Back-up! Can you get Chimp on this sub-level?” 

“Tech-wise? Probably?” 

Then Newsie goes back to her rushed instructions, to everyone; from Cherri to Vinyl, she knows what she’s doing, and the Girl wishes she could say the same.

The mask on her face is’ going to protect her from - Destroya! The Girl ducks, narrowly avoiding a blast to the head that scorches the wall behind her, and she’s going to get gunned down, she knows she is, what can she do what can she do  _ what can she do — _

“Okay, how many are there?” 

It’s Cherri in her ear, this time, or the radio piece, anyway, but the Girl doesn’t care, not as she realizes she’s losing ground, losing space, losing i _ time,  _ why did she think she was going to survive this? 

“I - I don’t - Fifteen, maybe?” Cherri’s voice is far more soothing than she anticipates, and there’s an icy cold blast of  _ they saved you once, it’s your turn  _ that rushes through the Girl’s system, from the base of her spine to her fingertip pressing on the trigger, another blast, another Drac,  _ another another another.  _

“That’s…” Cherri’s voice falters, and the Girl decides she’s going to focus on him, because Cherri’s gotten through more claps and firefights than the Girl could imagine. 

And, for a split second, as he begins talking, she hears the ghost of the word  _ agent  _ in front of his name. “Alright, fifteen, huh? You shot any of those fuckers yet?” 

“Three of ‘em.”

Cherri sighs, a soft sound for a man like him, and it’s like he’s  _ there,  _ with her. 

“Duck.” 

The Girl does so. A scorch mark paints the wall; behind her. 

“Drop to the ground - kick! The one Vinyl does when he’s pissy.” 

And, just like last time, the Girl listens - a Drac falls underfoot and meets the bad-side of a ray gun as she jams it in its face, ignoring the way she could hear a scream underneath that gruesome mask. 

_ They aren’t people anymore,  _ she tells herself, following Cherri’s instructions, blow-for-blow, Drac-for-Drac, but - 

She’s not listening to him anymore, not really.

She doesn’t know what changes, but one moment she’s clunkily following his directions, the way he seems to  _ know  _ what she needs to do, and the next she’s performing them before he says them, and the ray gun doesn’t have another ghost attached to it, the mask isn’t too oversized.

It’s  _ hers. _

It’s  _ hers  _ and she’s the patron saint of survivors, and a Drac squadron isn’t going to take from her more than they already have. 

There’s blood and smoke filling the corridor, the hallway,  _ whatever  _ she’s supposed to call it, but she doesn’t care, she  _ knows  _ she doesn’t need to care, so long as she can see.

And there’s nothing disrupting her vision with  _ her  _ mask on her face. 

“Girl? Girl, are you listening?” 

She huffs, blowing smoke away from her face, burning her lungs, another blast to another Drac in another blurry end of the hallway. “Just peachy. Is Chimp in? Does she know what I need to do?” 

“You need to hurry is what you need to do.” That’s not Cherri, or Newsie, and the Girl can only assume the strangely chipper voice is that of the DJ herself, DJ Hot Chimp. “There’s another squad tryin’ to haul ass down to where you are, but I jammed the elevator for a little while. You have some time.” 

“To do what? My  _ make-up?”  _

The Girl isn’t usually this snappy, but she’s covered in quickly drying blood and her hands  _ hurt  _ with the pressure she’s holding the gun, and there’s smoke  _ everywhere,  _ and what’s she doing again? What does she need to do? 

Oh, right, she’s asking Chimp that, right.  _ Focus.  _

“I’m getting to that.“ Chimp doesn’t snap, but they both know she wants to. “With your location and the firewalls I couldn’t get everything,  _ you  _ need to do that. Can you go back to that panel?” 

The Girl doesn’t mention she can’t  _ see  _ more than five feet in front of her with all the smoke from all the blasts, from the  _ firefight,  _ the only one she’s been in on her own. Instead, she sifts through the smoke, nearly tripping over a Drac on the floor. 

She holds back the bile in her throat, because she realizes, with a start,  _ I did that.  _

It’s not as though she thinks they’re still human, but they  _ once  _ were, and maybe she nearly vomits because she thinks of the person the Drac  _ used  _ to be. 

But it doesn’t matter.

Panel, right. That’s what she finds herself standing in front of, double-tapping the screen once again, the blue light appearing as the screen did. 

There’s no shot starting off a firefight this time. “Alright, I’m there, what do I do now?” 

Chimp  _ tsks,  _ the sound of nails hitting a keyboard as background noise. “There should be a big blue circle on the side, looks almost like a gear, you see it?” 

“I do!” Thank Destroya no one ever has any good website design ideas. “Okay, I clicked on it, but nothing seems to have changed?” 

The screen’s still the same big blocks of black text on a light blue background, and the Girl  _ prays  _ she does this right. 

“Yeah, it should. Uh, is there anywhere to put a password?” 

“What does  _ it looks the same  _ mean to you?” 

“I’m trying to help, okay?! Uh, there’s a password, but I don’t know where it goes!”

The Girl doesn’t apologize. “Well, what’s the password?” 

After listening to Chimp say the password, the Girl decides this is far too much work than she was expecting; she was expecting human animal cages, maybe, but  _ not  _ anything tech-related. So, she sighs, a nervous sigh, worried.  _ How much time does she have left?  _

“Do I seriously need to remember all that?” 

“Just… Yeah, I think so. Repeat it for me?”

Why is Chimp treating her like a  _ child?  _ She’s not a child, not anymore, and she shouldn’t be  _ treated  _ as though she is one! “DXC2019FFLBL1?” 

It takes her far longer to fumble through the syllables of each individual letter and number than she expects, though it’s surprising she manages to remember it at all. 

It’s even  _ more  _ surprising when the screen  _ changes  _ after she says it. 

“Yes!” Chimp cheers, no doubt able to hear the  _ woah  _ that slips through the Girl’s mouth as she stares at the now-enlarged screen; a map of the hallway with a list of commands in the corner and red x’s next to the hallway, each spaced out a few inches on both sides. 

“Uh… Release,” the Girl says, and nothing happens. 

She’d be embarrassed if she wasn’t so  _ surprised.  _ No wonder no one’s been able to rescue the Four, or they could rescue themselves, if something like  _ this  _ was in play. 

She can practically  _ hear  _ Chimp’s grin fall. “Fuck, hold on, let me see if its voice-activated, see if I can get you the right permissions.” 

“Why would it let me in in the first place?” the Girl asks with another huff of her breath, though not directed at Chimp; directed at  _ herself,  _ because she  _ knows  _ she’s running on borrowed time before that elevator reaches  _ sub-level eight  _ and she can’t rescue anyone if she’s too busy being  _ shot at.  _

“I don’t know, motorbaby, but -” 

“Don’t call me that, either.” 

Chimp says nothing else, though the Girl appreciates the way she doesn’t use the nickname again. It’s not as though she’s offended by being called a motorbaby, but she’s  _ not,  _ not anymore, and she’s not a baby, either. 

She’s  _ the Girl.  _

It’s like the Girl can hear the seconds she has left ticking down before Chimp says anything - “Got it! There you go, try the commands again!”

She’s nervous, of course she's nervous, if only because the Girl has no idea where that elevator even  _ is,  _ and when it opens, she has another problem to deal with. “Release.” 

Nothing. 

She tries to add something else to it, based on the small writing she can’t quite make out in those red x’s. “Uh… Release cellblocks one through sixteen.” 

Something happens. 

What  _ happens  _ is not what the Girl expects, despite the command she herself had said; she is  _ not  _ expecting the way the  _ walls themselves  _ open up. 

The pristine gray shifts, like blocks, lifting from their place on the concrete floor with a release of steam, sixteen times, and the Girl realizes with a start that the  _ x’s themselves were where the prisoners themselves were kept.  _

What does the x mean? Does it mark where the cells  _ are,  _ or…? 

nevermind that, there are five areas without x’s, or bright reds, at least, and she takes off running down the hall, away from the corridor, toward them - “Party Poison! Jet Star? Kobra Kid?” 

She’s saying their names, over and over, and maybe she’s scared that they truly are dead, that there’s no saving them, no one’s answering her, are they truly dead? 

That’s when she realizes, with dawning horror, standing in front of one of the open cells without a red x dotting the scanner next to the door,  _ why  _ they aren’t answering. 

_ They can’t answer her.  _

Because they’re  _ gagged.  _

It’s a shock of purple hair she’s looking at,  _ Jet’s  _ curls, though matted down with blood and dirt and the Girl gags at the sight, at the  _ smell,  _ she doesn’t want to know how long they’ve been down here, and Jet’s not even  _ conscious.  _

Or so she thought, but they crack a tired eye open, and… And there’s a spark, not the one that used to be there, shining so bright she thought they were the only star in the sky, but  _ something.  _

“Let me - let me get that off you.” Her voice cracks and she  _ hates  _ it, but she can’t help it. It’s the definition of heartbreaking and maybe it would’ve been better to think Jet’s dead than like _ this,  _ chained up like an animal.

They’re  _ human,  _ they’re a  _ Fabulous Killjoy,  _ they deserve so much better.

She’s shaking as she removes the cloth tied around Jet’s mouth, and she knows it, knows she flinches at the way the cloth is soaked in  _ something,  _ but she removes it nonetheless. “Can you walk?” 

They’re breathing hard, maybe catching their breath, and they’re  _ smiling,  _ they’re smiling and it’s not a BLI smile and she’s so relieved she could  _ cry.  _ “I - I don’t know. Maybe?” 

“When was the last time you walked?” 

“Uh… A week ago? It’s hard to keep track of time.” 

She’s disappointed, really, because… Because aren’t they going to say anything about how they missed her? But she realizes it’s not the time, they have to wait, they have to  _ escape  _ before anything can be said about  _ I missed you.  _

“...Maybe, we’ll see,” she mumbles under her breath, and gets to work on the fucking  _ shackles  _ keeping them up. They look so  _ tired.  _

And rightfully so, but she’s going to get them out. Get them  _ all  _ out, not just Jet, but… but what do the others look like?

They’ve been like this for  _ years.  _

Twelve years... Twelve years is a long time to go without hope. Are the rest of them even still  _ alive? _

The shackles are difficult, because she can’t blast them off without hurting Jet, and she doesn’t generally try to pick locks  _ attached to people.  _

Still, she manages, though she doesn’t know how or why. It doesn’t matter. Does it? 

When she gets them out, Jet hasn’t said a thing, looking at her, curious, though their gaze was mostly downcast.

And… And maybe it’s selfish, maybe it’s wasting time, but she  _ hugs them.  _ She hugs them like their lives depend on it and it’s over in a flash, but it’s  _ warm,  _ and she hopes it gives them as much hope as it gives her. 

“Time to get the others, yeah?” She asks with a smile, grasping Jet’s hand and, albeit slowly, leading them out of the cell. 

They hiss at the light - not that she blames them - and she hastily gives them her ray gun, protection, maybe to make her feel safer; and then she’s rushing into another cell, a shock of red hair, this time, fighting weakly, and she can see the way he lights up when he sees her.

Party Poison never lost his fight, after all.

“You ready to kick some ass?” She asks, quiet, and she’s all but forgotten about the radio, messing with Poison’s shackles after she manages to wrestle the gag off his mouth. 

The radio, though, violently reminds her it’s still there when Newsie’s shouting in her ear - “Hurry it up, crash queen! Ultra V’s should be joinin’ you soon but that elevator’s back en-route!”

“Shouldn’t Chimp just  _ stop  _ it again?” The Girl hisses, her reunion time cut short, but at that same moment, one of the two shackles drops to the floor. 

“I can’t!” That’s Chimp, of course. “Their system’s good, I can hack it once, but not again if it recognizes my signature. The firewall evolves against attacks.” 

“I don’t know what that means.” 

“Just - hold out till Val and the others get there, yeah?” 

The Girl nods, forgetting they can’t see her, and says nothing else; she’s still helping Poison, and he’s got more fight than his body can take, it seems, because he lists forward the moment the other shackle falls and she barely catches him.

He’s far too light. They all must be. 

“Jet’s in the hallway,” she tells him, soft, gentle, far more than he appreciates but he doesn't have the strength to fight the way he wants - 

Still, when they exit the cell, Jet passes her ray gun to Poison, who leans onto them for support. 

Jet hasn’t had good aim in  _ years.  _ Hopefully, Poison’s still got a kick to his grin, because trouble’s a tidal wave and they’re all about to drown. 

“There’s gonna be some ‘joys comin’ down,” she warns them, although she doesn’t quite know how to prepare anyone for a person like Val Velocity. “You’re not gonna like ‘em, but let ‘em help, yeah? Don’t mind the hair. Destroya, don’t mind the hair.” 

But as she says that, she’s already making her way to another cell, to Ghoul’s, she learns quickly, and he’s not shackled like the way the others were; his hands are bound in a different type of shackle sort-of handcuffs, and he’s gagged, too. 

She gets rid of that, first, and his eyes are blown wide like he’s surprised she’s still alive. 

She was taught how to stay alive by the very best, after all. “Ghoul, long time no see. How do we get these off?” 

It’s right down to business, but they can reunite later, when they’re all  _ alive.  _ “Dunno. Activated and deactivated with a keycard, meant for androids ‘n shit.” 

Well, he’s certainly still the same spitfire she remembers, and if they weren’t in such a perilous situation, she’d grin. Fuck, he has mechs for his hand, t _ hat’s  _ why the shackles are different.

If so, she doesn’t want to think about Kobra’s restraints. “We’ll have to test it out. Uh… I can’t…” 

She can’t  _ leave  _ him like this, she  _ couldn’t.  _ And her hands are scouring over every inch of the weird cuffs, but there’s  _ nothing.  _ Nothing!

“Witch be damned!” She shouts, accidentally slamming her fist onto the cuffs, out of anger, out of hopelessness.

They fall to the floor. 

“That’s… That’s one way to do that,” Ghoul mutters, standing up; no doubt he’s far more stable than the other two had been, though she has no doubt in her mind that he spent most of his time pacing. 

“There’s company on the way, join the others,” is all she tells him, though, before she rushes off, to the next one. 

And fuck, she should’ve expected something even  _ worse.  _ Kobra has a metal  _ spine,  _ for fuck’s sake, designed specifically to make sure he was a perfect soldier.

And perfect soldiers do not get captured.

Therefore, there’s no surprise he’s restrained  _ twice  _ on practically every limb, both elbows, both wrists, both knees, both ankles, his torso, his neck. She doesn’t have the time to fix it, to unlock them all, she doesn’t.

But she starts trying, anyway, and he’s not even awake.

So, she does the only thing she can think of, fumbling with the lock at the same time as she smacks him.

If she doesn’t know any better, she would have thought a spark traveled from her hand to his cheek. But it doesn't, of course. 

He wakes with a start, struggling, until he sees the mask, and his voice is raspy, not the same Kobra she remembers, but none of them are, not really. “Girlie…?” 

“Just Girl now,” she smiles at him - both restraints around his wrists unlock with a  _ click.  _

So they unlock in pairs, huh? What a horrible yet convenient design. Nevertheless, the Girl doesn’t think on it much as she works on the others;

_ Click, click, click click,  _ one by one, the restraints unlock. 

Kobra looks sickly and bloody underneath the locks. The Girl doesn’t think about that, and instead focuses on his face, on the taut lines and the way he looks just like he did twelve years ago, if  _ angrier,  _ and that's saying something. “Good to see you’re okay, then, Girl.” 

“You’re going to be too. Can you walk?” She discovers with a start, that unlocking the restraint around his torso unlocks the other two, and while she doesn’t know how she’s unlocking them, she’s grateful for it nonetheless. 

“Maybe.” 

As it turns out, he can’t, at least not  _ stable,  _ and she’s practically carrying his weight.

She would’ve helped him more, but that’s the moment she heard the ominous  _ ding  _ of an elevator, and when she looked over at them in a panic, it was  _ Ghoul  _ holding her ray gun.

Thank Destroya, because, truly, he’s the only good shot out of all of them.

She feels naked without her ray gun, without a weapon - it has quickly become her companion, but she doesn’t have the time to think about that.

It’s almost perfect timing, as she rushes  _ toward  _ the Four, as the Dracs spill out of the elevator, that the Ultra V’s make their appearance from the stairwell; the smoke from earlier had mostly cleared out, and Val’s stolen mop of  _ red  _ makes him discernible even from a distance, and she grins to herself.

Maybe they will get out, after all. 

Out of all the things she expects when she switches directions and starts toward the V’s, if only because they have more weaponry and the Four need to make their way that way, anyway, it’s not for Vinyl to toss her a ray gun. 

It’s not hers, and it’s not his, but she gives a nod, in a silent moment, and it’s almost as good as an apology from Val himself, but it’s Vinyl, and she wishes him good luck. 

And she turns back to the Dracs.

There’s less than she expects, now that she’s not panicking, and behind Val’s razor-sharp aim, the twins’ lackluster but occasionally effective usage of ray guns, and Ghoul’s sharpshooting abilities, they’ve got  _ more  _ than a fighting chance to out alive, they have the luck of fabulous killjoys.

Poison and Kobra are both helping each other down the hallway, closer to the V’s, and as the Girl spots them and lays down cover fire, more a distraction than anything, she sees Val’s ray gun pointed at Poison’s head. 

And he shoots a Drac instead.

She doesn’t trust him, not really, but they’re all in the heat of the moment and she somehow ends up back-to-back with Val, five, maybe six Dracs left; two are brought to burning end from the smoking side of her ray gun in Ghoul’s hands, one from Vinyl’s ray gun in  _ her  _ hands, and three from Val Velocity.

“Thank you,” she mutters, and she doesn’t care what Val does with the thanks. 

He’s not off the chopping block for nearly killing Dr. D, but he does the right thing, for once, and that’s a start, isn’t it? 

Still, he’s not her concern. 

“Stairs, gotta go to the stairs!”

“Make sure to lock the door behind you!” Newsie appears on the radio once again, and the Girl thinks she can  _ hear  _ the anxiety in her tone. 

“We got it!” That’s the twins, Val,  _ and  _ the Girl, all in tandem, and with a splitting-grin she remembers they  _ all  _ have earpieces; the Four are looking at them in exhausted humor, if only because all the moving  _ must  _ be exhausting for them. 

But they’re all in the stairwell before more Dracs are dispatched, and Vinyl closes, locks, and for good measure, jams the door shut, and it’s a whole different struggle from there. 

“They know we came in through the service door?”

“Not anymore.” That’s Cherri, not Newsie, and he doesn’t sound  _ soothing,  _ he sounds  _ cold.  _ But not the bad kind, not like he used to when he used a ray gun more than he needed. 

“Good.” 

The Girl looks over, over her shoulder from where she’s helping Kobra, -  _ fuck, she hadn’t realized she was as tall as him! - _ arm wrapped around his shoulder, and Val’s the one helping Poison; it’s such an  _ odd  _ scene, seeing him with the dead man he hates, but… 

They can think about later, when the twins behind him are not, in fact, tossing a  _ different  _ grown adult around - Jet, to be exact. 

“Hurry up,” she says, but she’s mostly saying it to herself, hoping, hoping it works, and Kobra doesn’t say anything other than a mumbled prayer to the Phoenix Witch. 

Eight flights of stairs double when you’re half-carrying four more people. Isn’t that  _ great?  _

Still, she’s  _ surprised  _ when they get back to the upper levels, to  _ ground level,  _ if only because they haven’t encountered more trouble. 

There’s sunlight streaming through the stairwell entrance, and the Girl cautiously pushes the door open even further, opening into the hallway, and…  _ Oh.  _

That’s why Cherri said  _ not anymore.  _

There’s no time to admire or disdain the way he took care of it, and how  _ efficiently  _ at that, so the Girl takes her ray gun back from Ghoul without so much as looking over her shoulder, and scouts the area out. 

No more vampire masks lurking in the shadows. 

“Clear,” she says, waving them all out into the corridor, and it’d be comical if they weren’t all so high-strung, breathing heavy, waiting for the next batch of trouble that, hopefully, wasn’t going to show.

“Are we just ditching the Jeep?” Vamos asks, right before Vaya nods their head and continues. “Yeah, is anyone gonna take the Jeep?” 

“We are.”

“ _ Newsagogo,  _ you bastard,” the Girl grins, maybe with satisfaction, and she leads them out, though Kobra’s walking on his own now, albeit with a limp. 

It’s all slow-going, like a victory walk or something,  _ we did the impossible,  _ but it’s not over yet, and she knows that. 

She knows that, even as Cherri’s smile lights up his face so much she’s afraid he’s going to split his lip open, even as Kobra looks like he’s about to start  _ crying  _ as he fumbles his way into the back of the radio van with Ghoul and Jet. 

Poison, instead, is looking wistfully at the Trans Am, and the Girl gently nudges him. “You wanna ride shotgun?” 

“Absolutely. They’re… gonna be fine, right?” 

Fuck, the Girl doesn’t want to think about the way the Four  _ must  _ be used to worrying about whether the others are  _ dead,  _ no longer a four-’joy Banger Cell but  _ in a cell.  _

“Yeah, Pois, they’re gonna be fine.” 

_ 

They don’t encounter trouble on their way out of the City, and while that was suspicious, the Girl would bet carbons that it’s Chimp’s doing; the Jeep, and therefore Chimp, Newsie, and the twins, are leading them all out, like a slow victory lap across the city. 

No more high stakes action, no more clutching her ray gun so tightly she thinks she’s going to burst a blood vessel, just… Driving. Driving after a  _ successful rescue mission.  _

By the time they’re back in the Desert, the sun has fallen, everyone’s still covered in blood and dirt, and Kobra and Ghoul are  _ laughing  _ as they pile out of the back of the van; they both need medical attention, probably, but they’re  _ laughing  _ and wrestling like it hasn’t hit them yet. 

Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe it never will. Maybe it never  _ should.  _

They’re all outside WKIL Radio, and Show Pony themself hugs each and every one of them, including the Ultra V’s, as they enter. 

_ The Doc must’ve woken up while they were gone.  _

And there they are, standing together, breathless, dirty, covered in years of  _ I missed you  _ and  _ I can’t believe we’re still alive,  _ the Girl realizes something, something that makes the stars shine the right way and the bass of the record they were listening to sound  _ right _ , and with her realization, she takes a sharp inhale. 

The Fabulous Killjoys are  _ not  _ her family.

They are  _ part  _ of her family, and she’s got her whole family back, now, together. 

_ Killjoys never die.  _

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! This was an idea I had on the backburner and then it became ? a whole thing? what do you think! <3 xoxoxo


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